difference between standard vhs and 8mm vhs?

[cyflyer]

Recording old vhs tapes to dvd via the standalone recorder, setting to 120min SP, the quality is equal, if hooking up the Hi8 camcorder to record the quality in darker scenes seems 'macroblocky' (for lack of a better word). Is there a difference between the two, and should Hi8 be recorded at the 60mins HQ mode for some reason ?

[edDV]

VHS and 8mm are separeate unrelated formats. Both have a basic performance version and an extended performance version.

Standard performance: VHS or 8mm
(~240 lines of horizontal resolution)

Extended performance: S-VHS or Hi8
(~400 lines of horizontal resolution)

You should be getting much better perfromance from Hi8 as a format. DVD SP should be an adequate record speed. If you don't like that, try HQ speed. The macroblocks in dark areas result from noise and shaky camera motion from hand held, poorly lit camcorder video. Higher bitrate will help.

[cyflyer]

Sorry, I should have said standard '8mm' instead of 'Hi8'. So in theory, vhs and 8mm tapes should be equal in quality when recording to 120min mode ?

[edDV]

Sorry, I should have said standard '8mm' instead of 'Hi8'. So in theory, vhs and 8mm tapes should be equal in quality when recording to 120min mode ?

Yes, VHS and 8mm are near equal as tape formats but material from a camcorder will be more difficult to encode than a TV capture due to exposure, shaky shots and focus hunting.